23 July 2025
Paper Collection—Award Winning Papers in Environmental and Earth Sciences

We are pleased to announce that 71 papers in the field of Environmental and Earth Sciences have been selected as the 2024 Best Paper Award winners.

Atmosphere:
Climate Change and Livestock Production: A Literature Review
by Muxi Cheng, Bruce McCarl and Chengcheng Fei
Atmosphere 2022, 13(1), 140; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13010140

A New Look into the South America Precipitation Regimes: Observation and Forecast
by Glauber W. S. Ferreira and Michelle S. Reboita
Atmosphere 2022, 13(6), 873; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13060873

Large Amounts of Water Vapor Were Injected into the Stratosphere by the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai Volcano Eruption
by Jingyuan Xu, Dan Li, Zhixuan Bai, Mengchu Tao and Jianchun Bian
Atmosphere 2022, 13(6), 912; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13060912

Clean Technologies:
Carbon Footprint and Total Cost Evaluation of Different Bio-Plastics Waste Treatment Strategies
by Giovanni Gadaleta, Sabino De Gisi, Francesco Todaro and Michele Notarnicola
Clean Technol. 2022, 4(2), 570-583; https://doi.org/10.3390/cleantechnol4020035

Water Pollution and Agriculture Pesticide
by Samira Mosalaei Rad and Shahzad Barghi
Clean Technol. 2022, 4(4), 1088-1102; https://doi.org/10.3390/cleantechnol4040066

Climate:
Evaluation of the CMIP6 Performance in Simulating Precipitation in the Amazon River Basin
by Corrie Monteverde, Fernando De Sales and Charles Jones
Climate 2022, 10(8), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli10080122

Early Drought Stress Warning in Plants: Color Pictures of Photosystem II Photochemistry
by Michael Moustakas, Ilektra Sperdouli and Julietta Moustaka
Climate 2022, 10(11), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli10110179

Diversity:
Ain’t Nothing like Family—Female Brown Bears Share Their Home Range with Relatives
by Astrid Olejarz, Jouni Aspi, Ilpo Kojola, Vesa Nivala, Alina K. Niskanen and Jenni Harmoinen
Diversity 2022, 14(1), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14010041

The Expanding Role of DNA Barcodes: Indispensable Tools for Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation
by Morgan R. Gostel and W. John Kress
Diversity 2022, 14(3), 213; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14030213

The Phylogeny of Rays and Skates (Chondrichthyes: Elasmobranchii) Based on Morphological Characters Revisited
by Eduardo Villalobos-Segura, Giuseppe Marramà, Giorgio Carnevale, Kerin M. Claeson, Charlie J. Underwood, Gavin J. P. Naylor and Jürgen Kriwet
Diversity 2022, 14(6), 456; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14060456

Status and Trends in the Rate of Introduction of Marine Non-Indigenous Species in European Seas
by Argyro Zenetos, Konstantinos Tsiamis, Marika Galanidi, Natacha Carvalho, Cátia Bartilotti, João Canning-Clode, Luca Castriota, Paula Chainho, Robert Comas-González, Ana C. Costa et al.
Diversity 2022, 14(12), 1077; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14121077

Energies:
Challenges and Mitigation Measures in Power Systems with High Share of Renewables—The Australian Experience
by Felipe Arraño-Vargas, Zhiwei Shen, Shan Jiang, John Fletcher and Georgios Konstantinou
Energies 2022, 15(2), 429; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15020429

Electric Vehicles: V2G for Rapid, Safe, and Green EV Penetration
by Abdullah Dik, Siddig Omer and Rabah Boukhanouf
Energies 2022, 15(3), 803; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15030803

How Environmental Regulation, Digital Development and Technological Innovation Affect China’s Green Economy Performance: Evidence from Dynamic Thresholds and System GMM Panel Data Approaches
by Lijiang Jia, Xiaoli Hu, Zhongwei Zhao, Bin He and Weiming Liu
Energies 2022, 15(3), 884; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15030884

A Convolutional Neural Network Approach for Estimation of Li-Ion Battery State of Health from Charge Profiles
by Ephrem Chemali, Phillip J. Kollmeyer, Matthias Preindl, Youssef Fahmy and Ali Emadi
Energies 2022, 15(3), 1185; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15031185

A Review of the Latest Trends in the Use of Green Ammonia as an Energy Carrier in Maritime Industry
by George Mallouppas, Constantina Ioannou and Elias Ar. Yfantis
Energies 2022, 15(4), 1453; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15041453

Geopolitical Risk as a Determinant of Renewable Energy Investments
by Floros Flouros, Victoria Pistikou and Vasilios Plakandaras
Energies 2022, 15(4), 1498; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15041498

Chemical Looping Combustion: A Brief Overview
by Tomasz Czakiert, Jaroslaw Krzywanski, Anna Zylka and Wojciech Nowak
Energies 2022, 15(4), 1563; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15041563

Overview of Demand-Response Services: A Review
by Daiva Stanelyte, Neringa Radziukyniene and Virginijus Radziukynas
Energies 2022, 15(5), 1659; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15051659

A Photovoltaic Technology Review: History, Fundamentals and Applications
by Ricardo A. Marques Lameirinhas, João Paulo N. Torres and João P. de Melo Cunha
Energies 2022, 15(5), 1823; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15051823

Forecasting of Electric Load Using a Hybrid LSTM-Neural Prophet Model
by Md Jamal Ahmed Shohan, Md Omar Faruque and Simon Y. Foo
Energies 2022, 15(6), 2158; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15062158

Use of Sustainable Fuels in Aviation—A Review
by Eduardo Cabrera and João M. Melo de Sousa
Energies 2022, 15(7), 2440; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15072440

Agriculture 5.0: A New Strategic Management Mode for a Cut Cost and an Energy Efficient Agriculture Sector
by Konstantina Ragazou, Alexandros Garefalakis, Eleni Zafeiriou and Ioannis Passas
Energies 2022, 15(9), 3113; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15093113

The Role of Crypto Trading in the Economy, Renewable Energy Consumption and Ecological Degradation
by Radosław Miśkiewicz, Krzysztof Matan and Jakub Karnowski
Energies 2022, 15(10), 3805; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15103805

The Impact of Agricultural Production Efficiency on Agricultural Carbon Emissions in China
by Yong Zhu and Congjia Huo
Energies 2022, 15(12), 4464; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15124464

Deployment of Fuel Cell Vehicles and Hydrogen Refueling Station Infrastructure: A Global Overview and Perspectives
by Remzi Can Samsun, Michael Rex, Laurent Antoni and Detlef Stolten
Energies 2022, 15(14), 4975; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15144975

Hydrogen Storage in Geological Formations—The Potential of Salt Caverns
by Aleksandra Małachowska, Natalia Łukasik, Joanna Mioduska and Jacek Gębicki
Energies 2022, 15(14), 5038; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15145038

Battery-Supercapacitor Energy Storage Systems for Electrical Vehicles: A Review
by Diana Lemian and Florin Bode
Energies 2022, 15(15), 5683; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15155683

A Review of Thermochemical Conversion of Waste Biomass to Biofuels
by Shivangi Jha, Sonil Nanda, Bishnu Acharya and Ajay K. Dalai
Energies 2022, 15(17), 6352; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15176352

Virtual Collection for Distributed Photovoltaic Data: Challenges, Methodologies, and Applications
by Leijiao Ge, Tianshuo Du, Changlu Li, Yuanliang Li, Jun Yan and Muhammad Umer Rafiq
Energies 2022, 15(23), 8783; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15238783

Clean and Affordable Energy within Sustainable Development Goals: The Role of Governance Digitalization
by Radoslaw Miskiewicz
Energies 2022, 15(24), 9571; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15249571

Environments:
Macro- and Microplastics in the Antarctic Environment: Ongoing Assessment and Perspectives
by Emilia Rota, Elisa Bergami, Ilaria Corsi and Roberto Bargagli
Environments 2022, 9(7), 93; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments9070093

Dynamics of Soil Organic Carbon and CO2 Flux under Cover Crop and No-Till Management in Soybean Cropping Systems of the Mid-South (USA)
by Alexandra G. Firth, John P. Brooks, Martin A. Locke, Dana J. Morin, Ashli Brown and Beth H. Baker
Environments 2022, 9(9), 109; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments9090109

Forests:
A Vision-Based Detection and Spatial Localization Scheme for Forest Fire Inspection from UAV
by Kangjie Lu, Renjie Xu, Junhui Li, Yuhao Lv, Haifeng Lin and Yunfei Liu
Forests 2022, 13(3), 383; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13030383

Recent Advances in Forest Insect Pests and Diseases Monitoring Using UAV-Based Data: A Systematic Review
by André Duarte, Nuno Borralho, Pedro Cabral and Mário Caetano
Forests 2022, 13(6), 911; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13060911

Review of Wood Modification and Wood Functionalization Technologies
by Samuel L. Zelinka, Michael Altgen, Lukas Emmerich, Nathanael Guigo, Tobias Keplinger, Maija Kymäläinen, Emil E. Thybring and Lisbeth G. Thygesen
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1004; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13071004

Global Wildfire Susceptibility Mapping Based on Machine Learning Models
by Assaf Shmuel and Eyal Heifetz
Forests 2022, 13(7), 1050; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13071050

Geosciences:
Impact of Well Placement in the Fractured Geothermal Reservoirs Based on Available Discrete Fractured System
by Saeed Mahmoodpour, Mrityunjay Singh, Kristian Bär and Ingo Sass
Geosciences 2022, 12(1), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences12010019

Reconstructing the Variscan Terranes in the Alpine Basement: Facts and Arguments for an Alpidic Orocline
by Michel Faure and Jacky Ferrière
Geosciences 2022, 12(2), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences12020065

Hydrology:
Development of a Decision Support System for Sustainable Environmental Management and Stakeholder Engagement
by Angelos Alamanos, Alec Rolston and George Papaioannou
Hydrology 2021, 8(1), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology8010040

Land:
Net Zero Energy Districts: Connected Intelligence for Carbon-Neutral Cities
by Nicos Komninos
Land 2022, 11(2), 210; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11020210

Drone-Based Identification of Erosive Processes in Open-Pit Mining Restored Areas
by Joan-Cristian Padró, Johnsson Cardozo, Pau Montero, Roger Ruiz-Carulla, Josep Maria Alcañiz, Dèlia Serra and Vicenç Carabassa
Land 2022, 11(2), 212; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11020212

A Review on the Overall Optimization of Production–Living–Ecological Space: Theoretical Basis and Conceptual Framework
by Gang Lin, Dong Jiang, Jingying Fu and Yi Zhao
Land 2022, 11(3), 345; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11030345

Mapping Agricultural Lands: From Conventional to Regenerative
by Luke Bergmann, Luis Fernando Chaves, Carolyn R. Betz, Serena Stein, Brian Wiedenfeld, Ann Wolf and Robert G. Wallace
Land 2022, 11(3), 437; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11030437

The Socio-Cultural Benefits of Urban Agriculture: A Review of the Literature
by Rositsa T. Ilieva, Nevin Cohen, Maggie Israel, Kathrin Specht, Runrid Fox-Kämper, Agnès Fargue-Lelièvre, Lidia Poniży, Victoria Schoen, Silvio Caputo, Caitlin K. Kirby et al.
Land 2022, 11(5), 622; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11050622

Driving Forces behind Land Use and Land Cover Change: A Systematic and Bibliometric Review
by Andrew Allan, Ali Soltani, Mohammad Hamed Abdi and Melika Zarei
Land 2022, 11(8), 1222; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11081222

Minerals:
Improving Separation Efficiency in End-of-Life Lithium-Ion Batteries Flotation Using Attrition Pre-Treatment
by Anna Vanderbruggen, Aliza Salces, Alexandra Ferreira, Martin Rudolph and Rodrigo Serna-Guerrero
Minerals 2022, 12(1), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/min12010072

X-ray Diffraction Techniques for Mineral Characterization: A Review for Engineers of the Fundamentals, Applications, and Research Directions
by Asif Ali, Yi Wai Chiang and Rafael M. Santos
Minerals 2022, 12(2), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/min12020205 

Quaternary:
Reconstructing Paleoflood Occurrence and Magnitude from Lake Sediments
by Bruno Wilhelm, Benjamin Amann, Juan Pablo Corella, William Rapuc, Charline Giguet-Covex, Bruno Merz and Eivind Støren
Quaternary 2022, 5(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/quat5010009

Neanderthal Fossils, Mobile Toolkit and a Hyena Den: The Archaeological Assemblage of Lateral Gallery 1 in Cova Del Gegant (NE Iberian Peninsula)
by Joan Daura, Montserrat Sanz, Manuel Vaquero, Juan Manuel López-García, Hugues-Alexandre Blain and Antonio Sánchez Marco
Quaternary 2022, 5(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/quat5010012

Remote Sensing:
A First Assessment of Canopy Cover Loss in Germany’s Forests after the 2018–2020 Drought Years
by Frank Thonfeld, Ursula Gessner, Stefanie Holzwarth, Jennifer Kriese, Emmanuel da Ponte, Juliane Huth and Claudia Kuenzer
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(3), 562; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14030562

Transformer Neural Network for Weed and Crop Classification of High Resolution UAV Images
by Reenul Reedha, Eric Dericquebourg, Raphael Canals and Adel Hafiane
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(3), 592; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14030592

A Review of Landcover Classification with Very-High Resolution Remotely Sensed Optical Images—Analysis Unit, Model Scalability and Transferability
by Rongjun Qin and Tao Liu
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(3), 646; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14030646

Global Mangrove Watch: Updated 2010 Mangrove Forest Extent (v2.5)
by Pete Bunting, Ake Rosenqvist, Lammert Hilarides, Richard M. Lucas and Nathan Thomas
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(4), 1034; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14041034

A Review of Synthetic-Aperture Radar Image Formation Algorithms and Implementations: A Computational Perspective
by Helena Cruz, Mário Véstias, José Monteiro, Horácio Neto and Rui Policarpo Duarte
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(5), 1258; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14051258

UAVs for Science in Antarctica
by Pedro Pina and Gonçalo Vieira
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(7), 1610; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14071610

Use of the Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 Satellites for Water Quality Monitoring: An Early Warning Tool in the Mar Menor Coastal Lagoon
by Isabel Caballero, Mar Roca, Juan Santos-Echeandía, Patricia Bernárdez and Gabriel Navarro
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(12), 2744; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14122744

Self-Supervised Assisted Semi-Supervised Residual Network for Hyperspectral Image Classification
by Liangliang Song, Zhixi Feng, Shuyuan Yang, Xinyu Zhang and Licheng Jiao
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(13), 2997; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14132997

Global 10 m Land Use Land Cover Datasets: A Comparison of Dynamic World, World Cover and Esri Land Cover
by Zander S. Venter, David N. Barton, Tirthankar Chakraborty, Trond Simensen and Geethen Singh
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(16), 4101; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14164101

Underwater Image Restoration via Contrastive Learning and a Real-World Dataset
by Junlin Han, Mehrdad Shoeiby, Tim Malthus, Elizabeth Botha, Janet Anstee, Saeed Anwar, Ran Wei, Mohammad Ali Armin, Hongdong Li and Lars Petersson
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(17), 4297; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14174297

Sustainability:
The Contribution of Data-Driven Technologies in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
by Nadine Bachmann, Shailesh Tripathi, Manuel Brunner and Herbert Jodlbauer
Sustainability 2022, 14(5), 2497; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052497

Investigating European Union Decarbonization Strategies: Evaluating the Pathway to Carbon Neutrality by 2050
by Ilaria Perissi and Aled Jones
Sustainability 2022, 14(8), 4728; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084728

A Global Assessment: Can Renewable Energy Replace Fossil Fuels by 2050?
by Jerry L. Holechek, Hatim M. E. Geli, Mohammed N. Sawalhah and Raul Valdez
Sustainability 2022, 14(8), 4792; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084792

Sustainable Leadership Practices and Competencies of SMEs for Sustainability and Resilience: A Community-Based Social Enterprise Study
by Suparak Suriyankietkaew, Krittawit Krittayaruangroj and Nacharee Iamsawan
Sustainability 2022, 14(10), 5762; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14105762

Toxics:
Perfluoroalkylated Substances (PFAS) Associated with Microplastics in a Lake Environment
by John W. Scott, Kathryn G. Gunderson, Lee A. Green, Richard R. Rediske and Alan D. Steinman
Toxics 2021, 9(5), 106; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics9050106

Microplastics in the Environment: Intake through the Food Web, Human Exposure and Toxicological Effects
by Concetta Pironti, Maria Ricciardi, Oriana Motta, Ylenia Miele, Antonio Proto and Luigi Montano
Toxics 2021, 9(9), 224; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics9090224

Urban Science:
What Happens in Your Brain When You Walk Down the Street? Implications of Architectural Proportions, Biophilia, and Fractal Geometry for Urban Science
by Aenne A. Brielmann, Nir H. Buras, Nikos A. Salingaros and Richard P. Taylor
Urban Sci. 2022, 6(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci6010003

Water:
A Hybrid Model for Water Quality Prediction Based on an Artificial Neural Network, Wavelet Transform, and Long Short-Term Memory
by Junhao Wu and Zhaocai Wang
Water 2022, 14(4), 610; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14040610

Groundwater Level Modeling with Machine Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
by Arman Ahmadi, Mohammadali Olyaei, Zahra Heydari, Mohammad Emami, Amin Zeynolabedin, Arash Ghomlaghi, Andre Daccache, Graham E. Fogg and Mojtaba Sadegh
Water 2022, 14(6), 949; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14060949

New Challenges towards Smart Systems’ Efficiency by Digital Twin in Water Distribution Networks
by Helena M. Ramos, Maria Cristina Morani, Armando Carravetta, Oreste Fecarrotta, Kemi Adeyeye, P. Amparo López-Jiménez and Modesto Pérez-Sánchez
Water 2022, 14(8), 1304; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14081304

A Review on Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Smart Technology in Water Treatment and Monitoring
by Matthew Lowe, Ruwen Qin and Xinwei Mao
Water 2022, 14(9), 1384; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14091384

Back to TopTop